Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation
Migration in India, 2020-2021
A. Introduction
Considering the importance of availability of labour force data at more frequent time intervals, National Statistical Office  launched Periodic Labour Force Survey  in April 2017.
The objective of PLFS is primarily twofold:
- to estimate the key employment and unemployment indicators  in the short time interval of three months for the urban areas only in the Current Weekly Status 
- to estimate employment and unemployment indicators in both usual status  and CWS in both rural and urban areas annually.
The sample design of Periodic Labour Force Survey  is not specifically focused to capture information on migration particulars and temporary visitors. However, in the PLFS canvassed during 2020-21, some additional information was collected on the following aspects:
- information on migration particulars of the household members.
- information on the temporary visitors in the household who arrived after March 2020 and stayed in the household continuously for a period of 15 days or more but less than 6 months.
The report, Migration in India, 2020-2021 contains estimates of the indicators based on information collected in PLFS during July 2020- June 2021 on these aspects.
B. PLFS fieldwork during COVID-19 pandemic
The fieldwork of PLFS was suspended first time from 18.03.2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic, and was resumed in June 2020 with the pending samples for this period. This, therefore, had a spill-over effect in completion of field work allotted for the survey period July 2020 to June 2021. Subsequently, there was another spill-over effect due to the 2nd wave of COVID-19 when the field work of PLFS was again suspended in April 2021 in most parts of the country. The field work was gradually resumed in the first week of June 2021 with COVID-19 related restrictions. First visit samples were canvassed physically with retrospective referencing in case of delayed samples. Field work for collection of information in respect of the selected samples of the survey period July 2020-June 2021, was completed by 30.09.2021.
C. Sample Design of PLFS
A rotational panel sampling design has been used in urban areas. In this rotational panel scheme, each, selected household in urban areas is visited four times, in the beginning with ‘First Visit Schedule’ and thrice periodically later with a ‘Revisit Schedule’. In urban area, samples for a panel within each stratum were drawn in the form of two independent sub-samples. The scheme of rotation ensures that 75% of the first-stage sampling units [1] are matched between two consecutive visits. There was no revisit in the rural samples. For rural areas, samples for a stratum/sub-stratum were drawn randomly in the form of two independent sub-samples. For rural areas, in each quarter of the survey period, 25% FSUs of annual allocation were covered.In PLFS conducted during July 2020 – June 2021, information on migration particulars of household members and information on the temporary visitors in the household was collected only during canvassing the first visit Schedules in both rural and urban areas.
D. Sample size
Sample Size for First Visit during July 2020- June 2021 in rural and urban areas for the Annual Report: Out of the total number of 12,800 FSUs  allotted for the survey at the all-India level during July 2020- June 2021, a total of 12,562 FSUs  were surveyed for canvassing the PLFS schedule . The number of households surveyed was 1,00,344  and number of persons surveyed was 4,10,818 .
Total number of migrants surveyed during July 2020 - June 2021 in PLFS are presented in Table 1 along with surveyed number of temporary visitors for whom the present place of residence differed from their usual place of residence.
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Table 1: Surveyed number of migrants and temporary visitors residing temporarily in a place different from usual place of residence
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category
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rural
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urban
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rural + urban
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migrants
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59,019
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54,979
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1,13,998
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temporary visitors who arrived after March 2020 and residing temporarily in a place different from usual place of residence
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1,550
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851
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2,401
E. Conceptual Framework:
- Usual Place of Residence :Usual Place of Residence  of a person is the place  where the person has been staying continuously for at least six months. Even if a person was not staying in the village/town continuously for six but was found to be staying there during the survey with intention to stay there continuously for six months or more then that place was as his/her UPR.
- Migrant: A household member whose last usual place of residence, any time in the past, was different from the present place of enumeration was considered as migrant member in a household.
- Migration rate: Migration rate for any category of person , is the percentage of migrants belonging to that category of persons.
- Temporary Visitors: For the purpose of this survey, temporary visitors in the household are those persons who arrived after March 2020 and stayed in the household continuously for a period of 15 days or more but less than 6 months. Estimates relating to the temporary visitors pertain to those for whom the present place of residence where he/she was residing temporarily differed from their usual place of residence .
The report, Migration in India, 2020-2021 is available at the website of the Ministry . Key results are given in the statements annexed.